An elegant argument in the humanities, as in mathematics, is one that:Ī) uses a minimum of additional assumptionsĬ) is original, in arriving at new and surprising conclusionsĮ) its conclusions are generalizable, in that they can be applied to similar problemsīut there are even closer resonances between art and science. In my estimation, the best writing in the humanities and social sciences abides by the standards of logical rigor, valid or plausible premises and “elegant proof” that are upheld in the sciences. Just as mathematics is, in some ways, an art form, so the arts and humanities borrow some of their standards of value (and proof) from math and science. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.” “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. As Bertrand Russell eloquently stated in his essay, “The Study of Mathematics” (1919): Like art and poetry, mathematical innovations are the result of an intuitive process that depends upon inspiration.

But sometimes there are resonances and intersections between the arts and the sciences even today. This confluence of the disciplines-like the ideal of the “Renaissance man” (or woman) who masters all fields–has become only a distant memory in intellectual history. One of my personal favorites, the salonnière Emilie (Marquise) du Châtelet, was not only highly cultivated, but also a world-class mathematician and physicist who conducted her own scientific experiments-such as suspending wooden spheres from rafters–to test Newton’s theories. In another, a child pops up unexpectedly from underneath the train tracks in yet another, The Birth of Music, a violin emerges from cupped hands in a wheat field.Įven as late as the Enlightenment, the French philosophes-particularly Condorcet, Condillac and Buffon–could hope to be at the forefront of scientific discoveries and be well-versed in literature, art and philosophy. For instance, in one of Luczywo’s photographs, the child is in the dog house and the dog stands outside of it. The world is topsy turvy, as it were, and nothing conforms to our expectations. Like Escher does in some of his artwork, most notably Waterfall Up and Down, Luczywo stages provocative inversions and displacements, where objects, animals and human beings aren’t where we’d expect them to be. What you see reflected in this (or any) image is largely up to you as a viewer. But, of course, photography, like all art, is open-ended, not limited to any given interpretation.

Personally, when I see this image it makes me think of the following implication: if we can’t live and appreciate each of these stages of our daily lives in the present, we will lose them forever, except in the images of our memories and art. Photography attempts to immortalize a moment–and an important stage of our lives–that is, in fact, very fleeting. The children will grow and move on to create their own lives the parents will age. No matter how much photography may freeze this moment in time, time will flow on. Luczywo catches a moment in the life of a family reflected in the water, with one of the children holding a large clock.

In the photograph The Great Migration (see image at the top of the page), for example, we not only see the physical reflections of leaves in the pond in a manner similar to Escher’s art, but also a metaphysical reflection on the passage of time. Escher, but gives them a metaphysical twist. Sebastian Luczywo’s photography sets into play tessellation patterns, reminiscent of the art of M.

Mc escher tessellation cube